Learning Stations-Ratios and Proportional Reasoning

Any of my loyal blog followers know that doing Learning Stations has been a major goal of mine all year.  I finally jumped in with my kids and did it.  I started out with a system that I felt was manageable for me and I have to say the kids and I all loved it.

This is the resource book I have been using for the learning stations, Mathematics Station Activities for Common Core State Standards, Grade 7.  They have books for 6th and 8th grade too.  For this first time and management purposes, the students worked with their collaborative table groups.  Instead of having the kids moving all over the room, I moved about.  If they needed to switch stations I got the papers and other material they needed.  I also conferenced with each individual group as they completed a learning station.  After all groups completed all stations, we had a whole class discussion.

There were four different learning stations for Set 1 and those materials are pictured below.  I made two sets of each manipulative because I have six groups in my room and I wanted to make sure no groups were waiting around for materials.  It worked out fine.  One of the stations only needed a calculator to solve problems.

Materials laid out on the front table.

Station 3 needed marbles but I used my colored cubes instead.

This station used algebra tiles.

I had to make some cards for this station.

A picture of my computer screen.  These are the discussion questions that the students had to work on while working on the stations.  After all groups completed all stations we had a group discussion using the questions listed above.

This is how we managed knowing what stations the groups had completed.  This was projected on the SMARTBoard and then groups would mark off each station as it was completed.  This was a lifesaver for me to be able to do a quick visual scan of the progress groups were making.

I was so pleased with how everything went with the learning stations and the students were very motivated.  This book was an excellent resource if you want to try out learning stations in your classroom.  There are a wide variety of stations covering all five domains of the Common Core.  Please let me know if you have any questions.